Muffins, Scones, Pancakes, and Breads

First of all, Happy 2009! We hope for a blessed year for everyone and for joy, peace, and memorable moments to come.
December has been a baking month! We love to bake breads and every week we try new recipes or make variations off of our favorites.

Muffins:
Today we made some quick pancake muffins - an orange variation and a garlic basil variation. For the orange muffins all we did was mix 1 cup of Bob's Red Mill 7 Grain Pancake mix, 1 Tb flaxmeal with 2 1/2 Tb water, 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/2 cup water, and 2 Tb wheat germ. The garlic basil muffins had all water and no orange juice, and had 1/2 tsp each of garlic powder and dried basil. We made 12 mini muffins - so easy and delicious!

Last week we made the garlic basil muffins from Veg News that La Belle Vegan recommended. Here's a link to the original recipe. These were excellent! We changed it up slightly:

Garlic Basil Whole Grain Muffins
2 Tb flaxmeal
5 Tb water
1/3 cup olive oil
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup soymilk
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 Tb baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp garlic powder or garlic granules
1 1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 385 degrees F. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray. In a large bowl, beat flaxseed meal and water with an electric mixer (or a wire whisk) for about a minute. Add olive oil, remaining water, and soymilk. Beat for an additional 30 seconds on medium speed. Stir in wheat germ, whole-wheat flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and spices. Spoon mixture into prepared muffin tin. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Makes 12 mini muffins.

Scones:
These scones were different than our usual scone recipe, as they used coconut butter and were not as dry as traditional scones. They were like the texture of banana bread - dense and soft. We made one as maple flavor and the other as apple cider flavor. Both delicious, spiced, and with a great rich texture.

Pancakes:
With a Marionberry-Peach-Banana fruit syrup, these oat-sesame pancakes were nutritious and flavorful! From chooseveg.com, we adapted this recipe. The sesame seeds were ground with the oats and batter to give a nutty flavor. We made a few minor adjustments, such as lowering the sugar and omitting lecithin; however, the big change we would recommend for future baking is to add baking powder. The pancakes didn't rise, but they were good anyways. The pancakes are also tasty plain and simple for lunch.
Cornbread:
With pumpkin puree, this cornbread was savory yet slightly sweet, moist and delicious! We followed our cornbread recipe, but modified it accordingly. We added ground coriander into the batter, which complemented the pumpkin savory-sweet taste. Next time we may add even more pumpkin, slightly less cornmeal, and a little banana for more moistness.


Bob's Red Mill's Gluten-Free Hearty Grain Bread:
This bread mix was like pumpernickel in flavor and texture, with hint of cocoa and caraway. We've never really dealt with gluten free food before, so it was hard to assess whether the batter was too wet or normal for gluten free breads. We will try other Bob's gluten free products to experiment more often with different flours and ingredients.

Happy New Year,
LK